About 40 residents in Ball Ground lost water service on Monday when a water main broke on Cartersville Street near the intersection with Ridgecrest Drive.

Karen Jordan, Ball Ground city clerk, said the water main break caused outages for city water customers who live on Howell Bridge Road, Old Howell Bridge Road, North Sharp Mountain Church Lane, Hendrix Lane, Cartersville Street, Covington Drive and Harris Court.

“They are out there working diligently to get it repaired,” Jordan said Monday afternoon.

City Manager Eric Wilmarth was on site Monday afternoon, and said crews dug up the water main and were draining the water from the hole. All roads remained open and cars were able to pass, he said.

“We’ve got the line exposed and we’re pumping the water out now,” he said. “It’s a deep line, it’s about 5 feet deep, so it didn’t freeze. We have it off right now.”

Wilmarth said the crew will be able to assess the damage once they’ve pumped the water from the hole and can see the main.

The water that leaked from the broken main was diverted away from roads and down an embankment, Wilmarth said, so there is no worry of ice as temperatures remain below freezing.

While there is not an estimate yet for when water will be restored, Wilmarth said the crew is working as quickly as possible to restore service to residents.

In a case of what Wilmarth called “really bad timing,” two other water pipes broke earlier in the day Monday.

“This is our third one of the day,” he said, on site at the third water main break. “It’s a little chilly.”

Wilmarth said the two smaller breaks from earlier Monday were fixed, and icy patches on roadways had been treated and cleaned up.

“We’re checking on them periodically throughout the day,” he said. “The calcium-chloride dried the road out pretty well.”

Wilmarth said it’s possible that one of the earlier breaks, a small service line near the surface on Old Canton Road, could have happened because of pipes freezing and cracking.

“The other two were definitely nothing to do with the weather,” he said.

The other small break that happened earlier Monday was located on Terrell Street.

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